Webinar Presentation

Today we had the first webinar in our I.C.T in Education Course with Karen Triquet. 

In today's class we had a group assignment in which we had to make a slide as a class. Each group had to make one card on the slide and the topic was on Critical Thinking and How to improve this in students. The instructions for this assignment were clear and easy to understand. Make a group of four or five people. Name your group and using images, video links, words or anything else to answer the following question 'What might critical thinking look and sound like in the 21st century classroom'.

Although we did not have a lot of time I think my group did contribute its 2 cents to the overall slide.

We spent a few minutes talking about what we should name ourselves and in the end we decided on the name 'Powerful Minds'. 

So to answer the question 'What might critical thinking look and sound like in the 21st century classroom' we had to ask ourselves another question first. What does critical thinking actually look and sound like? We came up with the answer by collaborating on the ideas that we had as a group. Let me tell you that answering this particular question which has many right answers on one card of a slide as a group was more time-consuming than I had originally thought. But we managed to do so in time and awaited our turn to present our viewpoint. Underneath the slide we had to write a short paragraph about our slide in the notes section. At the end of this post you can find an image of our work and if I get permission I'll post the rest of the slides at the end of our Module.

As always I welcome constructive criticism so please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

  

My vision for the 21st century classroom in Suriname

As a group I've posted our vision of the 21st century classroom. Now I'll give my own thoughts on the matter in a bit more details.

I do believe that children should have well motivated teachers. If the teacher is willing to research new methods of teaching and learning to better not only himself or herself but to make the lessons seem like an experience you can't miss. One of my favorite films where a teacher tried new things to engage his students is School of Life starring Ryan Reynolds. Not only did he influence the minds of the students but the other teachers as well. If you get a chance check it out and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I believe that the way we as students get placed in rows can work but is not really necessary, some might say sitting anywhere you like might create a but of chaos. But I believe that adding a system where you keep order and still manage to change the seating order in class can benefit both student and teacher. Because sometimes students in the back try to hide from the teacher are shy or feel uninterested in the class. Mixing it up could help the teacher learn more about the teacher and the student get to learn more about there classmates.

Also in my vision for a 21st century classroom in Suriname I would like too see more use of technology. Because we are living in an age of technology and if you can't get with the times you will certainly fall behind. If we can get students ready for the real world environment we as educators half done a good job. To build a school were technology is used as a tool for better education will be a great task indeed. But just as Rome wasn't built in a day, we also have to make the first step towards such a future. And I think that with this study course and with a few other things that Suriname is well on its way. We just have to facilitate this growth.

What would also help is if our business community would give a helping hand to facilitate our students and teachers with the right tools we could surely improve the way we teach. This would not only be helpful to the students who with these tools get to increase their 21st century skills but also the business community, because we would have fully trained workers ready for our employers which would in turn help the country's growth.

If you have any thoughts on the subject let me know by posting a comment down below. Please feel free to browse more content on my blog as well.

Thank you for your time and until the next post.

Happy reading.

Read more about implementing technology in the classrooms of Suriname here:
iPad-onderwijs OS2 Goejaba voor betere resultaten

21st century Suriname Classroom

Logo: With our logo we want to represent the connectivity of learning from all over the world by use of technology.

Name: For our name we decided on ICTS which is an acronym for Interactive Classrooms with Technology in Suriname

Our Vision of a 21^st century Suriname Classroom.

Every child needs or needs to have the right to a motivated teacher and thus in the vision we have for a Suriname’s 21^st century classroom a motivated teacher is essential. We also believe that the traditional classroom environment, where the students sit in rows facing forward, should be modified to a half circle. To have a 21^st century classroom we acknowledge that certain external actors (e.g. The electrical company, telecommunication service providers and architects in charge of designing the schools) should all collaborate into the creation of something innovative and beautiful. The need for affordable laptops, tablets, notebooks and any other devices the students might need would be great. Seeing as these electronic devices are very sensitive to temperature, air-conditioning would be a necessity. We would also want to stimulate the arts so music instruments are a plus.

My First Blog

I've never had a blog before so this will be my first blog. I think most of my post will be about the course I'm taking right now called 'High-Tech, High-Touch, High-Teach'. 

This is a course led by a collaboration of the ministry of education and community development

Suriname in partnership with The Advanced Teachers' College: Suriname (IOL) and the 

International Institute for Education for Development.